Contributed by Doug Ferguson
There has always been a concept of “Good” and “Evil” in the history of the human race. “Good” being defined as those actions by humans that are intended to help other humans to experience reasonable levels of freedom, joy and happiness. “Evil” being defined as those intended human actions that do the opposite for self-serving purposes. There are more secular terms like “Beneficial” vs. Non-Beneficial”, but they don’t address the moral aspects of these actions based on the traditional values of our country. There have always been debates over whether or not gun powder, the atomic bomb, and similar inventions have favored “Good” or “Evil” in history. The same holds true for most forms of technology development.
However, since the first telegraph and radio transmissions in the early 1800s heralded the beginning of the modern era of electronic communications, there has been something unique about the direction this technology has taken. From the dawn of time, humans’ ability to transfer information was always done physically. This was true whether it was done verbally, visually, or in written form. Even after the invention of the printing press and mass distribution was possible, it still was a physical process .
This physical spread of information to other regions or societies took time. This time allowed this information to be absorbed by its recipients for translations, changes, rebuttals, corruptions or it being discarded completely ending further distribution.
Fast forward to our current state of electronic communications technology where large communication networks exist to instantly transmit text, voice and video to vast billions of humans all over the world, even the illiterate. Most of these are controlled by a few huge commercial or government supported alliances and include social media, news and entertainment networks and public radio networks.
For instance, Facebook has 1.73 billion daily users! YouTube has over 2.0 billion monthly active users! ABC News Radio is the largest radio content company in the US - reaching 74 million people on 2400 stations! National Public Radio has over 1000 stations in the U.S. reaching roughly 25 million weekly listeners. We aren’t even addressing Twitter or TV numbers here. The heads of these organizations thus have unprecedented power for their small numbers to control, edit and stoke fear with this information affecting billions compared to anything that has existed in the past.
History has always seen those who have used whatever means of communication existed to further their personal agendas. There have been many attempts to do this in the past.
In the presidential election of 1948 for example, when Republicans had the most influence on it, national radio and newspapers announced, preprinted and distributed the headline “Dewey Wins!” long before the polls had closed on the West Coast. We now know this attempt to influence voters failed. When the final tallies were made, Harry Truman soundly defeated Tom Dewey and third party candidate Strom Thurmond in what was then the biggest upset in American history.
For the current era it’s been the Democratic Party leaders and it’s Progressive “One World” billionaire supporters who have had this media influence during election cycles. Compared to 1948, the propaganda power today for these few elites to control and censor our communications is unprecedented. This should be obvious to anyone witnessing their recent four year media blitz to discredit Donald Trump’s real accomplishments and try to get him removed from office, or, for even running for that office.
As a consequence, Saturday, November 7, 2020 will go down as the grand finale of the most brazen attempt in media annals to try and write American history. At approximately 10:30AM EST, all the major networks, news outlets and social media simultaneously called Joe Biden the new U.S. president.
This despite the fact that due to the high volume of COVID-based “mail-in” ballets, very large percentages of the votes had yet to be counted in critical key states. Other results were being challenged legally in multiple court battles around the country where widespread significant real and apparent voter fraud had been observed in this very close race.
Since that Saturday, these same media giants have introduced outright censoring of anyone trying to offer alternate information on voting fraud, actual COVID death rates or any other important data the citizens should know. Anyone doing so is labeled a “conspiracy theorist”, a “public health menace”, or even worse, a “racist”. Facebook, in addition to actual censoring, now “fact checks” people’s posts. This is just another way of calling them “liars” whether the information posted is valid or just an opinion being expressed to their friends or family. YouTube is now also censoring and removing content it feels “doesn’t meet their standards” where they had no such “standards” for similar content prior to the election.
After the above mentioned “Saturday Call of Presidential Election for Biden”, respected pollical columnist Roger L. Simon head-lined his column the next day with “Media ‘Calling’ Elections in a Democracy Is Post-Modern Fascism” Many of us would agree with Roger.
Back to the original point about electronic communications technology and the national media. By the scale outlined at the beginning of this article, most would also say that scale has definitely tipped toward “Evil” where truth, civility and especially freedom of speech are concerned. It’s already having a profound effect on our traditional freedoms and way of life. You will think correctly and obey!
Doug Ferguson is a retired engineer, having worked in the electronic industry for 40 years, now living in Palmer, AK.